New Studies Link Hearing Loss and Depression

Hearing loss has once again been on the receiving end of terrible news. As though the loss of the ability to hear people and things around you was not enough, sufferers of this ailment have now been revealed to be far more likely to develop depression in their lifetime. While this is certainly devastating news for thousands of people, that does not mean that there is nothing that we can do about it. We will discuss the study, treatment options, and how depression can result from hearing loss in this article.

The Tragic Study

The researchers from the Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders came together to study 18,000 people between the ages of 18 and 80 in terms of their hearing abilities. They found that people who were under the age of 70 had an absolutely incredibly high rate of suffering from hearing loss when compared to people of a decade ago. The individuals also suffered from depression in 11% of the hearing loss cases.

This came after all of these people had their hearing levels tested in a lab and then submitted to the clinic. Once these tests were finished with, all of the people had to take a test that could tell if they had thoughts about depression or a depressive attitude.

Treatment Plans

There are many different ways that you can go about treating hearing loss and depression in people as long as they are taken as separate diseases that feed off of one another. You can treat hearing loss by getting the inner ear examined to see if it can be surgically repaired or whether a hearing aid would be able to restore some hearing. If a hearing aid is fitted, then the person should recover enough abilities to bring them out of the depressive state. While the fitting or surgery is pending, you should be careful to treat the depression with therapy and medication so that the person understands what is happening to them and that help is available.

How This Can Occur

As sad as it may be, there seems to be a singular and simple cause for hearing loss and depression in people. The fact is that when you suffer hearing loss you are torn away from so many different things that you love in life like games, music, and conversations with young ones. This can make many people depressed and feeling isolated. That is why it is so important to be patient with people with hearing loss and let them feel appreciated so that they will not feel so withdrawn from a world that benefits from their unique and wonderful presence.